As a consumer healthcare researcher for more than 35 years, I constantly am searching for information and data to substantiate what makes people sick and ‘tick’. In that capacity, I receive a tremendous amount of information via networking with individuals around the globe. We share information on a daily basis, as we believe people ought to know facts about their health and how to preserve and maintain it, plus what deliberately interferes with that God-given right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as guaranteed citizens of these United States of America.

The recent unfortunate school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, placed a spotlight on gun violence—rightfully so. However, what seems to be missing in the equation to reduce gun violence in the USA—at least—is something that I, as a concerned citizen, healthcare researcher and pacifist, think needs to be spotlighted. It’s the inordinate use of psychotropic drugs in younger children, which may have impact upon their behavior. Negative side effects while taking psychotropic drugs are not anomalies, as the following list apparently documents.

According to a website providing individual’s stories about adverse effects/events relating to SSRI medications called SSRI Stories, we find some rather thought-provoking information, especially regarding those stories noted “ **Indicates a school shooting or school incident.”

The SSRI Stories website lists hundreds, if not thousands, of stories about the horrors related to taking psychotropic drugs.

The list below starts in April of 1988 and goes through October 2011. As noted on the SSRI Stories website, the person who kept that log has passed away, so probably it’s not been kept current. However, I find the stories listed below implicating ‘guilt by association’ since the perpetrators of school shootings and other violence apparently were taking what’s called psychotropic drugs. Personally, I think society, the law, and government health agencies must evaluate all that goes into violent behavior, just not guns, knives, rope, automobiles, alcohol, etc.

According to the National Institutes of Mental Health website [1],

Recently, there has been some concern that the use of antidepressant medications themselves may induce suicidal behavior in youths. Following a thorough and comprehensive review of all the available published and unpublished controlled clinical trials of antidepressants in children and adolescents, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a public warning in October 2004 about an increased risk of suicidal thoughts or behavior (suicidality) in children and adolescents treated with SSRI antidepressant medications. In 2006, an advisory committee to the FDA recommended that the agency extend the warning to include young adults up to age 25.

…

The warning also notes that children and adolescents taking SSRI medications should be closely monitored for any worsening in depression, emergence of suicidal thinking or behavior, or unusual changes in behavior, such as sleeplessness, agitation, or withdrawal from normal social situations.

Personally, I don’t think guns, knives, or whatever instrument is used to commit violence and crime have any input into the children’s behavior, as you can note from what I’ve underscored above. Truly, it seems to me that something additional was instrumental in the aberrant behavior that led children to commit horrible crimes and/or threats against others.School Stand-Off Apr. 13, 1988 Idaho Zoloft antidepressant

Too many physicians are too quick, in my opinion, to prescribe SSRIs for kids. Recently I heard that physicians will be labeling more and more children as bipolar, which means more psychotropic drugs. Will there be more violent crimes committed by children who may not be responsible for their acts, as such acts are drug-induced—not gun or knife induced, as many would have the public believe? When on psychotropic drugs, kids can be compared to a person who may be chronically drunk because of how those drugs change personality traits.

A 40-fold rise in bipolar disorder is being reported by physicians. Why so? My suggestion would be to reconsider all the neurotoxins and toxic chemicals found in vaccines that are being pumped into kids as soon as they exist the womb [Hepatitis B vaccine] with more vaccinations in multiple combinations at 2, 4 and 6 months! Doesn’t medicine realize that those chemicals and neurotoxins cross the blood brain barrier? Poisons were not meant to enter the brain. Isn’t that what the blood brain barrier is all about? That’s why there’s the need for federal health agencies to stop kowtowing to Big Pharma and take a serious look at the ramifications of what chemicals do to the human brain, especially in infants, toddlers, and teens. Let’s examine every aspect of probable chemically-induced crime, and not pin the tail on just one donkey in this game of what actually may be a prelude to the taking away of 2nd Amendment rights for some apparent spurious reason. At least that’s how I assess it.

Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.